Call Of Duty 4 - Modern Warfare

Review from Phil - Friday, 21 December 2007 @ 6:09pm

If there was one game to be released in 2007 that I needed to have, it was Call of Duty 4. Not since Medal of Honour: Frontline have I had any desire to partake in another World War II shooter, least of all one starring American soldiers. Factual reminder: it was called WORLD War II for a reason. More than one group of countrymen decided to pick up a gun and run screaming to their deaths.

I'll stop ranting about the overabundance of M1 helmets and men named Frank, because Infinity Ward have once again acquired power over the creative direction of the COD franchise, and reinvented it for modern gaming sensibilities. How nice of them! They paid some guy far too much to come up with the wholly unoriginal title: Modern Warfare. With such creative inspiration we can now move on to naming the next Nintendo masterpiece Super Mario: Italian Man and labeling the next PS3 system-seller as Gran Turismo: Driving Cars.

I'm just funnin', Infinity Ward. Your shooting guns at people game is actually very good! Hip hip, hooray!




Down to business. COD4 represents the best FPS control engine and graphical showing on the Xbox 360. Everything is polished to a mirror sheen, and there are so many instances of pure design perfection one can't help but wonder why they didn't make this game in the first place instead of revisiting tired old battles from years gone by. I suspect that without mastering games development for advanced hardware like the Xbox 360, the potential for such an ambitious game like COD4 to be truly exceptional will be squandered. Thankfully, COD4 pretty much delivers on all counts.

I'll get the mean and nasty out of the way first. The single player campaign is extraordinarily...shallow. Did you expect me to say short? From a pure minute-by-minute analysis, then yes, COD4 is strikingly short. To be honest, it never actually felt much shorter to me, as the element of "drag" kicked in not long after the first couple of missions. There really is no strategy or advanced combat tactics to be found in COD4 - it's a raging bull of kinetic shooting action, never letting up and never holding back. There is merit to be found with this approach, and for all intents and purposes, COD4 seems to have lived up to what the original vision of the game would have been. If it weren't for a mission named "All Ghillied Up", I may never have noticed just how lacking the single player game actually is.

In "All Ghillied Up", you take the role of a young man named Price. The mission is a flashback, told from the perspective of an old Price who happens to be your squad leader during the British SAS portions of the game in which you normally play as a solider named Soap, amidst interspersed levels featuring an American Navy Seal named Paul Jackson...

See what happens when you don't explain the background of the game first? Writing 101, kids.

In actual fact, I never consider the story to be paramount in these military games. You're a badass soldier/new recruit, off to save the world from rebels/dictators/the government, thwarting plans of a nuclear strike/assassination/acne outbreak. It's pretty boring, and COD4's lack of truly developed cutscenes do nothing to remedy the mediocrity. Back to the game.




During "All Ghillied Up", you take your orders from Captain Macmillan. Very, very specific orders. It's largely a stealth mission, with you and Macmillan creeping through shrubbery and desolate urban compounds. Numerous obstacles present themselves along the way, but these are stupidly easy thanks to Macmillan's unfaltering directions. He'll tell you when to move, when to shoot, when to hide. If you understand English, you can breeze through this mission without a problem. After a number of insanely cool scripted sequences, your duty is over and Price lives to tell the tale. After this flashback episode, the game resumes telling the present day conflict in which Price, Soap and the Americans are involved.

It's a tease to let the player get a taste of great stealth gameplay and unique combat scenarios in All Ghillied Up, because before and after, there is nothing quite like it. The mission plays like a tutorial, after which you are pumped and ready to take command in more missions of equal design genius. Unfortunately, it's back to intense combat and mindless shooting which, it must be said, is still extremely good. It's not that COD4 needs to be a stealth shooter or stray from the core notion of "Duty" - ie, following orders, but All Ghilled Up really did leave me wanting more, and more is what the remainder of COD4 does not provide.

When all is said and done, the single player campaign is excellent. Even though the length may be short, the action is so brutal you will feel exhausted by the end - in a satisfying way. The set pieces are truly superb, with all kinds of totally badass scripted events occuring in real time as your trigger finger works the controller like a madman. It is a shame to get a mere "preview" of unique, dynamic gameplay as evidenced in All Ghillied Up, but the overall campaign is still more than capable of taking you for a wild, crazy ride.




I've never been much of an online multiplayer gamer. For this reason, my opinion regarding COD4's online capabilities may be somewhat short-sighted, as others have run the full gauntlet of shooters and experienced the best and worst of the online world. Regardless, there can be no denying the fact that Call of Duty 4 is my all-time favourite online multiplayer game. I have met many others online who will say the exact same thing.

Players can log in to Xbox Live and start the action right away. There won't be all that much to play initially, but this is due to the system of unlockable content that COD4 masterfuly provides. A new player would jump in and just head straight to Team Deathmatch to get their feet wet and put their skills through an initial test. The lobby will automatically find matches for you, and you will be playing within seconds.

Every action you make in COD4 multiplayer will net experience points. Kill an oppoonent, gain experience. Call in an Air Atrike, gain experience. Assist a teammate in a kill, gain experience. You'll see the points racking up immediately, and begin to level up accordingly. In any particular game, you may be scoring 10 points per kill, and additional points for activating a UAV, Air Strike, or even helicopter assault. At the end of the match, a bonus is awarded and a handy overview will let you know how much experience you need until levelling up, and any particular gameplay options you have unlocked.

Everything is unlockable. All weapons, gameplay modes, challenges, levels and custom classes can be obtained simply by having a great time in multiplayer. In each match you need to choose a class, and there are numerous standard presets like assault, sniper and shotgun classes, but the real strategy involves deeper customisation. You can choose primary and secondary weapons, explosives and amazing combat tweaks known as Perks. Perks can be anything from extra bullet damage, health upgrades and rad battle techniques like Last Stand and Martydom. By choosing Martydom as one of the three available Perks, your character will drop a grenade on the floor if killed, and have am extra chance to blow away your victorious foe within seconds of scoring the kill. This kind of fantastic customisation results in some truly epic matches, with all manner of weaponary prowess culminating in one bloodbath after another.

The greatest aspect of COD4 multiplayer is the sense of achievement and progression. Even beginners can immediately feel accomplished with challenges that test endurance and skill. Under the Barracks menu, you can view your statistics and log in to your challenges progress. Most challenges involve getting a certain number of kills with different weapons, but you'll also receive points for racking up melee kills and even destroying vehicles. You will be notified that a challenge is complete immediately, with a massive notice popping up letting you know how awesome you are as you simultaneously gun down some Commie piece of shit in the back. Good times.




The presence of these challenges seemed to be a cue to completely remove multiplayer Achievements. Great. The one game I actually want to play for hours on end in multiplayer, and I can't even unlock any Achievements for it. Bad form.

Despite the most popular games always being the classic Team Deathmatch and Free-for-all modes, many other multiplayer options are available. Objective-based and search-and-destroy mission work very well, and when a strong team gets together with a class-based strategy and tactical objective, matches can be very fast, dynamic and professional. The great Kill-Cam feature instantly shows the enemy who fired the last bullet, and this can then form part of your objective after you respawn. If a sniper picked you off, the Kill-Cam should provide plenty of information as to where he is hiding, and this can allow you to sneak up and deliver an extremely satisfying silent kill.

I won't go on, as there is so much more to be found within COD4 multiplayer, and much of it is better to be discovered as a surprise. Rest assured, no matter how much you think you know about online multiplayer, COD4 is everything you could want it to be and more. Practically perfect in every way.

Any fans of shooters at all should have no hesitation in picking up Call of Duty 4, the best FPS on the Xbox 360. It might not change the minds of those who shy away from such intense combat, but everyone else should find a great thrill ride in single player, and a game to be played for months to come in multiplayer.

Summary

While the single player leaves a bit of room for expansion and experimentation with some new ideas, the multiplayer is so deep you'll never want to log out. A must-buy.

Pros

Stunning graphics, great soundtrack and the smoothest, deepest online shooter available.

Cons

Single player is lacking in more ways than simply length, story told through poor mid-mission cutscenes - though the opening sequence is masterful.